Please someone tell me why it take years to develop a game

[Linen]

Having coded (admittedly very simplistic) games myself, I try not to be too harsh in regards to game delays. I know how difficult trying to create a simple game can be as one person, but when you start to create games at a larger scale, the scale of bugs and glitches follows suit, and plenty of them can outright break your game, especially once you start expanding the scale of your game, and especially once there's reputation or money on the line. A bad game, after all, can effectively kill your career.

Also having worked on others' (live action) videos plenty of times, I can definitely tell you that creating a movie is not quite the same as creating a video game. A movie's story is usually linear and doesn't need to account for alternate possibilities. A video game has to account for every potential action the player can do in some manner, whether it's by creating roadblocks to force you in a certain direction or having different dialogue from an NPC depending on whether X/Y/Z condition is met. The sound for all games also has to be created from scratch; you won't have natural ambiance or sound effects in a constructed model world as you might with live action video, even graphics-heavy ones. If your game includes combat vocals, you'll need a good variety of cries for that, or they can get annoying real quick. It isn't as if you need to pay the people doing all this, too; I've little doubt that actually paying people to do all the things that a game needs to be functional, much less good, costs. Getting that money is definitely a concern.

The selling ideas/production/etc. parts I can't comment on nearly as much as the process of creation themselves, but just a bit of food for thought.

 

[overcast]

3D designing is not childs play. It takes years to even get the proper scene right. And some of the odd things you see in games. It's all because of sloppy work. As you can see sound, graphics, controls, testing and redevelopment and fixing bugs. All of this is possible only if it is done with given some time to things. I guess people have to consider that it's not going to be that easy. With gaming engines and hardware changing code has to be written again.

 

[Deen]

Because it involves a lot of iterations before you release the final finished products. It involves a lot of hardwork and a huge amount of capital. Besides that you need a group of experts from developers, designers, artist, story writers, actors for the voice, sound engineers. You see a lot goes into game development.

 

[AlexHarris]

Well, with movies you don't have to make up your own laws of physics and what not. Movies and their lengths vary from the caliber of the actors and directors. In the simplest terms, it's about how well they can execute the script in the closest way to the director's vision and then they roll with that. With games, you will find a few things out. The first being that the game hates your guts and wants you to miss as many semi-colons as you possibly can and will not say anything until the last minute. The second being that depending on what type of game you are making there will be all sorts of bugs and the more you add to the game the more likely elements will collide and cause a bug. Most enjoyable games are fun because of their depth and diversity and depth takes a lot of time. Third, there are limitations to some programming languages so sometimes you may take a while to find an alternative language or approach to making something happen in a game. Not all games take years, but if they are going to take years assume it will be awesome and worth it. Even after taking years of debugging a game almost every game has a few bugs that slip through the cracks so it can't be helped that it takes a lot of time to perfect.

 

[Robbie626]

There are numerous factors that take time on making a good video game. For instance, graphic designs can take a lot of time and patience if they want the job to look good. I have a boyfriend that is an artist and he could take a while doing a physical drawing. I can see how more difficult it is drawing and designing something similar on the computer. Another reason, game developers need to take breaks! The last thing I want to do is to get headaches or eye pain from the computer screen and working on the computer for hours. This could be understandable and the same reason for a social life. Game developers do not work on the game 24/7 just like no one goes to school or work all morning and night. Finally, writing and some games need to hire voice actors for the game's story that could result in a long process. These are just some common reasons and assumptions that could extend the game development period. Some of the best games take years because they want to produce the best game for you!

 

[arachnophobik]

I'd say it's because a lot of things go into it, that is if you want to make something that's actually good and original. Otherwise, if you want to just ripoff a gameplay of already popular games, and maybe take the same sprites and just re-skin them, then I'd say it shouldn't take you too long. But if you want something with a great storyline, great graphics, and great/unique gameplay, then you will definitely take years to make sure it's all well thought out and working decently.

 

[Neiltarquin]

Its like building a life using 1's and 0's... Just imagine how long shall your name be in binary code.

Or just see it as making childeren. Its a team effeort. You need to plan it. Prepare the things your team will need and once the plan is ready. You can put it into action. And when you are at the actual development of the game. It's like the pregnancy stage, your nurturing your baby. Making sure that everything during that is ok. And one the baby came out, that is the system test phase. Checking for glitches, TRIAL AND ERROR up until you have the perfect setting for everything. That is why creating games is that long. Its a long hard process.

 

[Neiltarquin]

I've played that game before but i wasn't in to the game at that time. Iwas either playing Tiberian Sun, Red Alert or Command and Conquer. Maybe I'm playing the games I mention coz my freinds are playing them as well.

 

[SerSlavos]

Well, there is a lot of things to do when it comes to creating a game. Probably even more than making a movie or writing a book, and yet you wait for these 1-2 years, sometimes even more. When it comes to games there is a lot to do, create a world, story, characters, develop them, design, create effects, animations, cutscenes, music... Really, the list goes on and on. It is true that there is a team of people who does that, but still you need an inspiration and imagination, and of course, money to make it all real.

 

[WarVet]

Your notion about the timeframe of game development is, in part, wrong. There are games that are developed in record time, less than 24 hours. Now, for AAA budget games, the length of time may depends on the size of the dev team and other kind of decisions that
could delay the steady work over the game.

Precisely that. While i do agree that there are marketting reasons as to why games take a long time to be developed quality content takes time to be developed. Now there are small games, and im not saying that they're not good, some of them are very good too they can be done in a very short time.

 

[SashaS]

I recently got into programming a bit as a hobby that I hope to turn into a lucrative side income (and hopefully full time income eventually) and yes, it is something that takes a significant amount of time and effort and creativity. Not only that, but the logistics of making a game are huge. Even a simple one will have so many variables and possible outcomes for every input. There's just so much to consider and the smaller your team, the bigger the workload, which means more time spent on every objective.

A multi-million dollar company like EA can churn out games in the dozens every year because they have a massive team with years of experience, as well as franchises to continue, providing a base code on which to improve, as opposed to having to start from scratch.

But with indie developers and people like the creator of Stardew Valley, who is literally one guy, there is just so much to do. A workplace alone means having to buy a competent computer and all the respective tech, then getting the programming and software required for the game, then getting all the ideas, the coding, the finishing touches, the testing. There is just so much more than meets the eye.

 

[OursIsTheFury]

Because you manually have to design every corner of the game. There's no genie that will magically generate an entire Skyrim map, complete with quests, NPCs, dungeons, designs, and unique areas. It's all pretty hard work, but sometimes game developers get lazy and would release an incomplete game, then complete it with DLCs, microtransactions, or even Day 1 DLCs. That sucks for the player, and you really lose faith when gaming companies do this.

 

[Ash]

People don't appreciate how much time and effort goes into developing games. Think about a game like Grand Theft Auto V. Just go somewhere random on the map and look around you. Everything has been considered, every little detail has been properly developed by Rockstar and not just done in a few minutes. There are various posters around the map, and each one has been designed in great detail and many contain jokes. Just think how long that takes. And those are just the little things. Games take a lot of time to be developed because things need to be designed, developed, programmed. Sounds need to be recorded, edited and programmed into the game. Think about all the testing that needs to be done.

 

[WarVet]

Because you manually have to design every corner of the game. There's no genie that will magically generate an entire Skyrim map, complete with quests, NPCs, dungeons, designs, and unique areas. It's all pretty hard work, but sometimes game developers get lazy and would release an incomplete game, then complete it with DLCs, microtransactions, or even Day 1 DLCs. That sucks for the player, and you really lose faith when gaming companies do this.

Oh aye, i hate the DLC trend. It started off nicely enough with worthy additions to the main game. Then companies started to get greedy and launch half unfinished games only to squeeze an extra buck here and there. The next thing you know is nobody delivers full games anymore. Just picture yourself delivering half-finished reports to your boss and asking an extra buck to deliver the conclusion. Not very funny hmm?

 

[Linen]

Oh aye, i hate the DLC trend. It started off nicely enough with worthy additions to the main game. Then companies started to get greedy and launch half unfinished games only to squeeze an extra buck here and there. The next thing you know is nobody delivers full games anymore.

Though on the flip side, also consider consumer demands in this regard. There have been plenty of instances where if people weren't constantly pushing for a release, you'd have had a more complete game outright instead of a half-done game with DLC that should've been in base. (I'm not saying that it's never the company's fault, but that there's more than just greed involved for at least a few cases)

 

[OursIsTheFury]

Oh aye, i hate the DLC trend. It started off nicely enough with worthy additions to the main game. Then companies started to get greedy and launch half unfinished games only to squeeze an extra buck here and there. The next thing you know is nobody delivers full games anymore. Just picture yourself delivering half-finished reports to your boss and asking an extra buck to deliver the conclusion. Not very funny hmm?

People will still pay. Not like everyone has the patience to wait for a game's Game of the Year edition when a new game goes out. That usually takes 1-2 years, if at all, to be released. Are you telling me you, as a fan of the product, can wait that long before getting the game? I'm like that, but then again I'm pretty thrifty and won't pay for a game unless it's heavily - and I mean heavily discounted.

 

[WarVet]

People will still pay. Not like everyone has the patience to wait for a game's Game of the Year edition when a new game goes out. That usually takes 1-2 years, if at all, to be released. Are you telling me you, as a fan of the product, can wait that long before getting the game? I'm like that, but then again I'm pretty thrifty and won't pay for a game unless it's heavily - and I mean heavily discounted.

I can pay. But I mean I got to be a HUGE fan of the franchise. So far only one franchise has achieved that and it was MGS with Phantom Pain. But the ending was so disappointing that it lost all the feeling is had for it haha. Anyway, when it comes to any other game I will wait for a good deal like you. If I see a good deal I will even wait a little more to get a great deal. Can't spend that much in games anymore.

 

[Zyni]

Oh aye, i hate the DLC trend. It started off nicely enough with worthy additions to the main game. Then companies started to get greedy and launch half unfinished games only to squeeze an extra buck here and there. The next thing you know is nobody delivers full games anymore. Just picture yourself delivering half-finished reports to your boss and asking an extra buck to deliver the conclusion. Not very funny hmm?

Yep, and it's to the point that it's not just DLC any more either. New expansion packs (like a new game rather than just a patch) and even entirely new games go out unfinished. It can always be finished up later, right? It can, but will it? There is no guarantee that bugs will all get fixed or tweaks will be made or content will be added in a timely manner, once they have your money.

I get that it's a lot of work. It also takes a ton of testing and tweaking. I just don't much care for this model of unfinished releases and the era of pre-orders. I think it makes game makers (some of them) lackadaisical.

 

[Tronikart]

So much more than just coding is taken into account, just the planning on the game, making something that brings in players and makes them stay playing the game, that takes some time, making the art too, there are a bunch of people trying to get the best out of them to create something new and fun. After all is set, then it comes down to coding, testing, fixing, coding more, testing more, fixing more and so on until its perfectly balanced, fun to play and with the fewer amount of bugs. Early Access on steam lets you get a bit of a glance of the game during these stages, which can be great, but also risky as they might change things you liked or not finish the game ever.

 

[Sino989]

I am not to sure about why it takes so long. It seems like mostly everyone has given a pretty good answer and this was very interesting to ready all of the things that go into creating a video game.